


New World Order

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heaven, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series, Protective Castiel, ohsamtripleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters manage to close the gates of Heaven and Hell, a final act that had rendered one blind and crippled, bedridden for the rest of his days, the other broken into particles as numerous as the stars or grains of sands across Heaven. This is Cas' story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New World Order

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainylemons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainylemons/gifts).



> **_A/N:_** There's a [Triple Play Challenge](http://ohsam.livejournal.com/659989.html) on Livejournal's **ohsam** comm. In which the goal is to have both art and fic for a three-part prompt. 
> 
> My fill is for **rainylemons** 's [prompt](http://ohsam.livejournal.com/659989.html?thread=3713045#t3713045):
> 
>   1. All of time and space
>   2. Cas
>   3. Coming apart a thread at a time as he is somehow set loose on the currents of the universe and constantly traveling to the end of time and space with only Cas able to find him, here and there, now and then, to be with him and reassure him that he is not forgotten
> 

> 
> Special thanks to **quickreaver** not only for the glance-through and catching stupid mistakes because I wrote this on the fly, but also for being such a spectacular mod and host and to **monicawoe** for the look-through and helping me make this more Sam-centric. Also, **rainylemons** , I hope this little thing makes your day all bright and shiny!
> 
>  ** _Disclaimer:_** Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada.

Space is finite, but not in any way humans could ever discern or measure. Not even if they had thousands of lifetimes and all the wisdom of God. But this is your domain — yours, along with the seraphim and cherubim and all who had been cast down from Heaven. 

There is a new order, now, and while you are not trusted to be in one of the elite echelons, you are nonetheless named one of the generals of the archangels, the guards and guardians of the new Heaven. It was, you suppose, intended to be a form of punishment, but you accept your duty freely.

Your grace thrums, burns, more powerfully than before. You no longer have a vessel; there is no need for one. You simply _are_ — Alpha and Omega. Out of destruction came rebirth; a new Heaven and a new Hell was formed when the Winchester brothers threw themselves at the seal, blasting it wide open and restoring the balance, an act that had rendered one blind and crippled, bedridden for the rest of his days, the other broken into particles as numerous as the stars or grains of sands across Heaven, his vessel destroyed in a final act of sacrifice, his soul unable to hold itself together.

The seal is closed these days, with only enough one-way swing to allow mortal souls into the two realms however justice meted, but no longer could the celestial and damned to pass through and walk the earth.

It saddens you sometimes, in the great glory and splendor of all time and space that you have been rendered so useless, condemned to watch and listen and to never again be a part of it all. Occasionally you traitorously wonder whether Anna had it right — to choose destruction over helplessness — but you’d never been half as brave as her, so you watch and guard.

Sometimes you hear the one called Dean screaming in pain, fear, for his brother and other times there are quiet, sobbing pleas for Death, for anybody. You ache those times, wanting to go to your friend’s aid, but you don’t. Can’t. The laws of this Heaven — laws that have been set by the Winchesters themselves — bind you and because you are neither Death nor a reaper, you cannot answer Dean’s entreaties. So you listen and pray.

You stumble across Sam one day. Or, more accurately, you encounter a bit of Sam, a dust-fragment of a memory: a beach, kissing a girl with blonde hair, the smell of coconut. The mote is tiny and dim, struggling to survive in such a harsh and brutal wasteland. You take it into your grace, without quite considering the consequences or repercussions. It shudders within the bright light that makes up your essence, contracts on itself as though it expects to be consumed or destroyed. _Afraid_ , you realize, _Sam is afraid_. 

You tug back slightly and feel Sam relax the tiniest fraction. You’re immediately contrite. _Of course_. _Lucifer had been an angel too_. You soften and Sam stills. There’s still fear, the tense wariness, and the overriding, all prevailing self-loathing that nearly makes you recoil. You don’t and you send out a tendril of reassurance, comfort, trying to make yourself as gentle as possible. Sam quivers, settles and you surround him with as much warmth as you can muster, drawing upon everything you’d learned in your years on Earth. For a moment, you wish Dean were here. He was always better at this. At the thought of his brother, Sam sighs and you stroke him with a bit of your grace as though he’s that terrified half-starved kitten you found once under the overpass.

You reassure him that he meant well, that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions; it is one that you’d walked yourself. You tell him that he’s forgiven.

Time passes and you find more of Sam. They’re always bits and pieces, here and there. Some are miniscule particles like that first one, but others are filaments, strands of memory as thin and fragile as the tungsten wires in those lightbulbs humans were so fond of. You take all of them into your grace, hoarding them the way a miser hoards pennies. Each bit of Sam is terrified when you take it in, shying away from your touch, light, but they’re also quicker to calm, especially as their number grows. You find moments and heartbeats — specks of time spent in the cage as Lucifer’s meatsuit, the pain and agony of addiction and needing something so badly that he’d stop at nothing, the shakes, sweats, and hallucinations of detoxing and coming down from staggering highs. There’s also the feel of a Taurus pistol and the first time he’d ever fired it. And how he’d puked after. The pieces you collect aren’t all bad, though. You find others — more of the blonde girl, the rumble of a sleek black muscle car, years spent free of the hunting life at Stanford University, sweet kisses under the moonlight, applying to colleges on the sly, dreaming of a day where he wouldn’t ever have to hunt, curling up next to someone who’s slightly bigger but still very much a child and sleeping the deep slumber of knowing that one is safe and protected. 

You sweep up all of them, give each of them the same tender care you’d given the first. They all have that sour tang of unworthiness, of believing that they are not deserving of such unconditional love. Offering your forgiveness, the constant reassurance, you think you must be getting better at the gentle thing; you can feel the bits knitting together, healing. Sam will never be whole, but neither will he shatter. You give up some of your grace to use as glue, especially the parts that had been tormented by the devil — the atoms that’d only ever known suffering. It’s the least you can do for the one who’d sacrificed himself — twice — to save the world and restore the balance. It’s the least you can do for the one who’d been marked by Hell since birth and railed against his nature with every fiber of his being, even forgiving you time and time again, including that time when you’d ripped down the wall that protected him from Lucifer, laying him bare. You owe him. Especially when you find his forgiveness for your own deeds.

Yet that still doesn’t fully explain the strange loyalty you feel towards Sam Winchester or the fierce sense of protection you harbor for him: it’s only when you discover the biggest and brightest bit of Sam yet — something so radiant and vividly white it rivals the light of your own grace. It’s long, thick, an anaconda of a ribbon. You spool it in slowly and are instantly assaulted with images of someone bigger, stronger. _Brother_ , you understand instinctively. There are countless memories strung up together, latching onto this person like barnacles to the hull of a ship, or a stone — rides in the black car, teasing that end up in laughter, a smile fit for the devil, sturdy hands hauling him upright time and time again, bandannas being used as makeshift bandages, strong hugs and a deep, gruff voice promising the impossible… 

It overwhelms you, the amount of love that’s there and you understand. 

You assure the flickering, shuddering coil that is the essence of Sam, taking longer than you ever have before, lingering on each individual memory, even the ones you’ve already gathered up like so many dust bunnies. This part never gets better… each new particle of Sam is just as terrified as that first, cowering like a dog kicked too many times and doesn’t have the sense to turn mean. You soothe, caress, until Sam is calm again and you feel him trust that you will not harm him, telling him that you are watching over him, keeping him safe until Dean comes.

And you offer more of your own grace, using yourself to compress him into a tight nucleus. It’s not enough and it never will be enough, but you try anyway. It’s the one thing that the Winchesters taught you — to keep trying even when you know you’re damned before you even begin, and plunging into it anyway. You return to your post, doing your best to crotchet the tiny electrons to the dense proton-and-neutron coil of love received and given that make Sam’s core. You know there’s more of Sam scattered across the cold waste and you watch and wait and search for anything you might’ve missed.


End file.
